The search for alternate revenues to support the animation and gaming industry for kids content found a place at FICCI FRAMES 2015 with an entire session dedicated to it. Moderated by veteran Green Gold Animation founder and CEO Rajiv Chilaka, the panel saw Reliance Entertainment-Digital CEO Manish Agarwal, Dream Theatre founder and CEO Jiggy George, Disney India VP and head consumer products Abhishek Maheshwari, Yaboho New Media founder and CEO Hitendra Merchant and Aditya Horizons founders Aditya Bakshi and Major General GD Bakshi.
The session kicked off with Rajiv addressing the issue of retailing in India directly to Jiggy as to what is being done about it to which he said, “TV isn’t an expensive medium, so entertainment can surely reach a large audience. The issue is that though the consuming class has money, retail hasn’t reached them through the right avenues. We don’t look at our IPs from the lens of consumer products like Disney or Viacom do.”
Jiggy also said that characters needed to look good not just on TV but also on products, to sell. Talking about his experience of leaving a corporate job and taking up the ownership of being an entrepreneur, he said, “It is not easy to be one, but in today’s world it is very possible to do it.”
Rajiv then addressed Abhishek about Disney’s approach to this and whether the iconic character of Mickey Mouse still stood the test of time today. He said, “The character or story needs a heart. Yes, Mickey Mouse is still a favourite but now we have many characters that have been travelled to other platforms such as Marvel heroes or Pirates of the Carribbean. The important thing is that the consumer should find them relatable. We have witnessed the journey and progress of consumer products not just in developed but also in developing markets.”
On the gaming front, Manish said that Reliance’s challenge with BigFlix was a painful journey because Indians had a mindset of consuming things for free and good internet service is still not available to majority of the masses. “Though their propensity for paying for good quality has increased, the streaming bandwidth has not. BigFlix has a small paying subscriber base but that does not cover the content cost,” he explained.
Rajiv then asked if it was possible for games to do better than merchandises and if it was possible to monetise it. “The game on Frozen has done far better than the merchandise. Why gaming has the potential is because it has a wide distribution arena and I think it will be surpassing licensing and merchandising worldwide. The frequency and number of purchases that can happen in a game will help generate more users and in India gaming monetisation can only happen through advertisements,” says Manish.
Yoboho runs a YouTube channel called as Hoopla Kidz which has a sizeable subscriber base and viewership. Hitendra advised young entrepreneurs that the important thing is to identify and understand the platform that will work best and then invest in it. “YouTube is a good platform for us. We have 25 per cent viewership from the US, 15 per cent from UK and 4 per cent from India. We are now making apps on our characters/shows and also considering merchandising as well,” he said.
Abhishek ended the session by saying that in a few years time, consumer products and gaming won’t be separate but will go hand in hand.